Entertainment news for June 20, 1997

The dust has barely settled on Col. Tom Parker’s grave, but the publishing industry is already bloated with tell-alls about Elvis Presley’s notoriously manipulative manager, who died Jan. 21. ”People were scared to talk about Parker when he was alive,” Billboard Books editor Bob Nirkind says of the imposing impresario. Nirkind has scheduled an unauthorized bio by Nashville-based writer James Dickerson for fall 1998. Meanwhile, early 1999 will bring Morrow’s Snowman from EW contributor Alanna Nash. And Parker’s widow, Loanne, has announced she’s penning the sole estate-sanctioned account, though she has yet to settle on a publisher. Her cowriter, former Las Vegas Hilton PR honcho Bruce Banke, notes that their portrait will not dwell on Parker’s relationship with the swivel-hipped one. Morrow senior editor Paul Bresnick concurs that the appeal of the Colonel’s tale extends beyond his Kingly connections. ”Parker belongs to a group of uniquely American con men,” he says. Sounds like the Colonel’s in for a lickin’.

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